Liverpool FC Forum

[bigmick]

Keep him, just have a word in his shell-like and get him to get over the half way line now and then. Feck me it's not just because he's got a good long punt on him that he scores more ultra long range goals than pretty much everyone else in the entire history of association football.

[Sabre]

We agree so much that this is getting boring.

I remembered Bigmick in the final because I saw Alonso against Germany, not Greece even in the oppo box giving last passes to Torres!!

It's true, at that point Germans went gung ho and there were spaces, but it catched my attention how he dared to go upper than at club level anyway. After all his substitution was meant to give the team a more defensive profile...

So Bigmick "might be on the money" on that topic, but it remains to be seen whether it's about player's decission or Rafa's.

[4ORDY]

Talking about people taking the pi*s out of us regarding money 20mil for Keane wtf.

[account deleted by request]

We have just about all decided we should keep Alonso......... and now it seems he is off again! 

Juvuntus back in for Liverpool midfielder Alonso after missing out on Aquilani
By Sportsmail Reporter
Last updated at 8:40 PM on 01st July 2008

Juventus are ready to move in with an increased bid for Liverpool's Xabi Alonso after looking to have missed out on prime target Alberto Aquilani.

With Roma midfielder Aquilani on the verge of signing a new improved contract, Juve are expected to renew contact with Liverpool by the end of the week and match their £16.5million asking price after previously failing with a £14.5m offer.


The Serie A side briefly shelved their pursuit of Alonso after being alerted to Aquilani's dissatisfaction with an annual salary of less than one million euros but Roma now seem certain to end any doubts over Aquilani's future by handing him a similar package.

Senior Juve sources claim Alonso is now back in pole position and that they are prepared to find the extra two million euros to secure his signing, particularly after a concerted website campaign by supporters in favour of the ex-Real Sociedad midfielder.

Alonso's former team-mate Momo Sissoko is already established as a firm crowd favourite at the Stadio Olimpico, and Juve fans have made it clear they want the 26-year old to join him, rather than Claudio Ranieri's other target, Dejan Stankovic, of Inter Milan.

[Sabre]

particularly after a concerted website campaign by supporters in favour of the ex-Real Sociedad midfielder.

I have nothing to do with this, I promise 

Well, this is precisely why I was in anger at the beginning with such a hasty move: Because the summer is long, the Euro makes you better known, and other clubs might join the bid to raise the value, which is the point, I think.

I want Alonso making a good service for Liverpool, either in the pitch, my first option, or in the cash. Losing him for a small fee is the thing that's hard to accept.

[Owzat]

We have just about all decided we should keep Alonso......... and now it seems he is off again! 

Juvuntus back in for Liverpool midfielder Alonso after missing out on Aquilani
By Sportsmail Reporter
Last updated at 8:40 PM on 01st July 2008

Juventus are ready to move in with an increased bid for Liverpool's Xabi Alonso after looking to have missed out on prime target Alberto Aquilani.

With Roma midfielder Aquilani on the verge of signing a new improved contract, Juve are expected to renew contact with Liverpool by the end of the week and match their £16.5million asking price after previously failing with a £14.5m offer.


The Serie A side briefly shelved their pursuit of Alonso after being alerted to Aquilani's dissatisfaction with an annual salary of less than one million euros but Roma now seem certain to end any doubts over Aquilani's future by handing him a similar package.

Senior Juve sources claim Alonso is now back in pole position and that they are prepared to find the extra two million euros to secure his signing, particularly after a concerted website campaign by supporters in favour of the ex-Real Sociedad midfielder.

Alonso's former team-mate Momo Sissoko is already established as a firm crowd favourite at the Stadio Olimpico, and Juve fans have made it clear they want the 26-year old to join him, rather than Claudio Ranieri's other target, Dejan Stankovic, of Inter Milan.

Read that, if we go ahead with a £15m signing of Barny and sell Alonso that will be a £1.5m profit, hardly worth it if you ask me. I'd rather bank the £16.5m and sign someone around £7m-£10m and then use the rest in/towards signing a winger or striker. I know top quality strikers normally cost a packet, but if we don't sign them from a Premiership club then we might find find Santa giving us a Cruz as a Crimbo Pressie (go on someone, tell me I can't say Crimbo, I dare ya!)

[Sabre]

Alonso is currently in San Sebastian enjoying some holidays with his little son.

Unfortunately the sounds he's making doesn't seem as committed to Liverpool as sounded a month ago

Quotes

"I value a lot the cups and titles I've achieved but now I want the league"

Journo: "The Italian league for instance?"

Xabi: Any country's league will do. -- Until now he always talked about the premiership

Journo: Are you that close to Juventus as it's being rumoured?

Xabi: No, right now I'm on holidays and I don't want to know anything. I can't tell anything on that topic neither.

The rest of the interview are just praises to Aragones, Casillas, Torres and Spain

Journo: Torres told us before the Euro that people do not know how good is Xabi...

Xabi: "I've known him better this year. The great season he has done has been incredible. Now he's part of Spanish football history aswell".

-----

I say the sounds are not good because every time he was asked he told us things about his future at Liverpool, how happy is there and  how his future is committed there. It seems that this days will be calm, but it doesn't seem to me as if he's staying.

[bigmick]

"I value a lot the cups and titles I've achieved but now I want the league"

Sounds like he agrees with me.

[account deleted by request]

"I value a lot the cups and titles I've achieved but now I want the league"

Sounds like he agrees with me.

  and me!

[7_Kewell]

18 million for Barry?!?  f**kin ell Rafa...keep Alonso and use the cash on a WORLD CLASS winger.

[Sabre]

And newkit I guess. Who doesn't want the league here? 

I'd fúck, and by fúck I mean playing reserve players in qualifying rounds of CL if that was necessary and key to win the league.

Yesteryear we started very well in the league, even top of the table with 15 points or something, but we started badly in the CL, and we had to do a pretty good effort to win our latter 3 games in the CL group. In those games we played our best team and those efforts probably were paid in the league those weeks (It's the idea I have, I haven't bothered to google and check it).

I'd like that for once, we played preferably our strongest teams in the league, even if we're going to play an apparently weak team at Anfield, and rotate/rest our most key players of the league in the CL, using good players to substitute them, Alonso for Mascherano, Lucas for Gerrard, Hyypia for Skrtel, etc.

That is, when it comes to the league I want a settled team with few changes, and use rotation at will for the Champions League games.

[bigmick]

That is, when it comes to the league I want a settled team with few changes, and use rotation at will for the Champions League games.

Feck me sabes I need to go lie down.

[Sabre]

Yes, yes, reading other people's arguments sometimes is convincing in the long term and you yield some steps in your position. Mind you I do think that you CAN win the league by rotating, but I think that in some games we really played weaker sides against certain teams, because we were resting important players for very important games.

I prefer that until we win the league, in the future it's the CL games when we play those weaker sides. If we had a truly deep quality squad, you could still rotate Rafa style and win, but unfortunately we have not that depth, unlike Barcelona who had Bojan, Eto'o or Henry to choose from. We just have Torres instead in that league of quality. But it's complicated to say no to CL when it's important economically.

BTW. You yield steps too, I've known a guy more antirotationist than you: Steffan Effenberg. Who said that it was a massive mistake Aragones changing the team against Greece because the best players have to play always. He said that was the reason of Portugal's failure too! So you see, you're not the biggest antirotationist in the planet.

[bigmick]

Feck Effenburg. I was on about rotation before he even knew what it was, arian c...

[bigmick]

Seroiusly though if we're talking about yielding steps, we clearly can't play the same team in the League games, the Champions League qualifiers and the early rounds of the League Cup. You could, but the players would be fecked by Christmas.

Here's what I'd do.

I'd pull together the younger players, the Nemeths, the Plessis, the Lee Peltiers and tell them that they are my Carling Cup team. Alongside them, I'd pull in the Insuas and the Lucas's (who I'd make captain) and tell them I want no fecking about, I want to win the thing. We're taking it mega seriously, but we WILL NOT be changing the squad regardless of who we draw in the later rounds. If they get to the final, they're in it's as simple as that unless they've broiken into the first team first.

I'd get the senior players together and tell them we were going all out for the Premiership. Everything will be concentrated on that competition. My first team at any given week will start in the Premiership. If we rest a player in the Champuions League and bring a reserve in, it is that reserve's opportunity there and then to stake a claim to get into the Premiership team. I wouldn't be rotating in the league, I would be picking my best team based on merit. Not merit based on the head tennis or the playstation Fifa 96 in training (just kidding before I get banged up) but merit based on performance in the matches. By and large if the team in the league is winning, I'd leave it. If someone plays sh!t, I'd drop them. In the Champions League I'd tell the blokes who were in posession that if they were "rested", it would obviously give the opportunity to a reserve player to come in, do well and nick their place. That's life.

That is how it should be done, in my humblest of opinions.